


Aid and Abet

by china_shop



Category: White Collar
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Fic, Gen, Not Quite Gen, Prompt Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-03
Updated: 2012-12-03
Packaged: 2017-11-20 04:29:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,182
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/581312
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/china_shop/pseuds/china_shop
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sooner or later Caffrey makes everyone confront their relationship with the law.</p>
<p>AU (diverges from canon just before the end of 3.16).</p>
            </blockquote>





	Aid and Abet

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Amadi](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Amadi/gifts).



> Thanks to mergatrude for cheering me on. <3

The room is small and unassuming. Worn caramel carpet, brown coverlet, bland art prints on the walls. It's decidedly not a Neal Caffrey kind of place. 

Clinton arrives early, and he can't settle. He prowls the eight feet of floor between the bed and the tiny bathroom, examining every object as if he's investigating a crime scene. As if the clock radio will tell him what he's doing here. Loyalty to Peter is part of it. Concern for Caffrey. Are either of those enough to push him over the line of the law into outright aiding and abetting? 

Peter thinks this is the right thing, or he wouldn't have asked, and if Diana were still in New York, she'd probably be here in Clinton's place; she's always trusted Peter's judgment. But Diana's in DC playing the double agent, Peter's mole on Kramer's team, and Clinton is the kind of guy who makes up his own mind. He chose to be here. He's still second guessing that choice a little, but sooner or later Caffrey makes everyone confront their relationship with the law.

Clinton remembers the commutation hearing, how he told the Board that Caffrey should work out his sentence and be grateful. He remembers months earlier, Caffrey turning up on his doorstep late at night with a bottle of scotch. The companionship, the unspoken attraction. Even then, they hadn't really been friends. Now Neal is on the run and Peter's in DC fighting Kramer with all the bureaucratic weapons at his disposal, and Clinton doesn't know what they are. Not colleagues. 

It's like being in a spy novel.

A light, hurried knock on the door, and Clinton lets Neal in. There's a moment after the door closes where they just look at each other, sizing each other up. It's been three weeks. Neal's hair is longer, curling almost to his collar, and he's dressed casually in jeans and a green shirt. No hat. Just another citizen, though even without the vintage suits, he's the kind of guy who turns heads. He looks drawn, and tension around his eyes makes him seem older than usual.

He scans the room quickly, takes in the files on the bed, and then seems to collect himself and slow down. His smile turns wry and playful, that old Caffrey charm. "All of New York City, and you find the one hotel that has a TV news crew in the lobby," he says.

"Really?" The place had been deserted when Clinton arrived half an hour ago. "What's going on?"

"Celebrity sex scandal." Neal's lashes sweep down to cover his eyes.

"How'd you get past them?"

"I have my ways."

Clinton rolls his eyes and goes over to the files on his bed. If Caffrey doesn't want to share, that's up to him.

"There's a staff entrance," says Neal, after a few moments. "Back staircase."

Clinton nods, placated. "It'd ruin the illusion if people saw you on the news in New York. There's a sweepstake at the office about which continent you've run to."

Neal comes over and picks up a binder: the FBI's updated playbook on How to Catch a Con Artist. "Where's your money?"

"Australia," says Clinton. "Fifty bucks." It's money down the drain, but it would have raised eyebrows if he hadn't chosen a location. As well as the binder, there are two file folders on the bed: one contains all the intel they've been able to gather about Kramer; the other is everything Kramer knows about Neal. They and the binder are all highly confidential. Clinton clears his throat. "You don't have the little guy with you?"

"At a meeting with an FBI agent? Mozzie's not as trusting as I am." Neal's flipping through the playbook, pausing on some pages, leafing past others.

Clinton takes the chair by the tiny built-in desk and watches him. "This could've been a trap."

"Could've been," agrees Neal, without looking up.

There still could be agents lurking in the bathroom, swarming around the TV news crew in the foyer, up the stairs. Blocking the elevator. Neal knows that, and he came anyway. How much is he trusting Peter and how much Clinton? It's impossible to know. Clinton thinks ignorance is safer for his peace of mind. "It isn't."

He means it's not a trap, and Neal does look up then, meets his gaze. "Thank you," he says seriously. Then he returns to his task and asks, offhandedly, "Did you think about it?"

"I'm a federal agent." Clinton's thought about a lot of things. This is his compromise. 

Neal hesitates, just a fraction, and Clinton wonders if he's supposed to notice. The perpetual Caffrey question: can any of this be taken at face value? He almost doesn't hear Neal murmur, "You don't have to be."

"Yeah, I do." Clinton doesn't let himself consider the alternative. 

Neal closes the playbook and gathers the other files together. He stands up, looking resolute. "Okay, well."

"Peter's working the system." Clinton stays seated. "He'll get the better of Kramer. Sort this whole thing out." 

"Yeah." Neal sounds unconvinced. Kramer's won every battle so far, and his political capital exceeds Peter's ten to one. There's still hope, but the outcome is far from certain. Neal crosses the caramel carpet and holds out his hand, and this might be goodbye. With the information he has tucked under his arm, he could vanish off the radar never to return, his continued existence only inferred from rumors and Interpol reports.

Clinton stands up to shake his hand, and somehow the gesture turns into a fierce bear hug, the thousand million possibilities of their lives crushed into a singularity. 

"Take care of yourself, Caffrey," Clinton mutters roughly.

Neal pulls back, flushed but otherwise composed. "Always do."

A wistful smile twists his lips, but both of them know there's no point taking it any further. They are who they are, and anyway, Neal might only be weakening because he's pre-emptively nostalgic for his life here, or because Clinton is familiar, symbolic of home. Or because Neal can't have the guy he really wants, Peter.

This isn't the time or place for that conversation. It's too late. Neal is leaving. The door shuts with a clunk, and the room is empty. 

Clinton sits back down at the desk. They're supposed to leave the hotel a good ten minutes apart, and that's just as well because he needs some time to get himself together. To savor that hug. To wonder what if he weren't an agent through and through, and he'd dropped everything and gone on the run with Neal and Mozzie. It's so far from his experience it's hard to picture, but the glimpses his imagination provides are heady and there's a small part of him that bitterly regrets not inviting himself along.

The greater part knows it's impossible. The greater part bullies him to his feet ten minutes later, makes him scour the room for anything dropped or forgotten, and then without looking back, he runs his hand over his close-cropped hair and leaves the scene of his crime.

 

END


End file.
